On Thursday afternoon I was running the hot water in the tub to put some water in a bucket. About 30sec into it there was a HORRIBLE sound coming from the wall (behind the water spout)... like a very loud & constant banging. The kids actually thought it was a monster in the basement!

That evening my (very handy) brother came over for another reason... but I told him about it and he checked it out. He turned it off/on a few times... listened to the banging a bit... turned it on slightly to get a big screeeeeeching sound.

I said "So what's wrong?" He said "You probably don't wanna know." He told me that the pipe (in the wall) was coming loose.

We had a plumber come over the next day who CONFIRMED the diagnosis ("Oh yeah, she's fallin' apart." is what he said). He'll be back tomorrow or Tuesday to do the work. Since he's going into the wall ANYWAYS, we're going to have him bring our fixtures up to code. We have an (obviously old) "hot" and a "cold" handle in the tub, and it should be just one handle. So, he's going to fix that too. He'll put a "goof plate" up behind the new handle (to cover the other holes) which he said will look like it belongs there. I hope so.

I guess the job'll be about $475. Why didn't I go to plumber school???

alot of times, the water (esp the hot water) makes a terrible sound because the pipes aren't exactly falling apart, but rather the pipes aren't anchored to the walls or floors properly and they create a vibration and then the banging or screeching noise. Just putting additional straps on the existing pipes are usually all you need.
(and it's quite common in older homes).

The other common reason is because theres too much water pressure in the pipes. - but usually it's the strap problem.

the new fixtures probably won't be very pretty once installed. The 'blanks' he'll put in the place won't look very attractive
you aren't required to "bring it up to code" btw you can have seperate levers to the tub for as long as the house stands without being non-compliant. The new codes are in existance because with a single lever, they have 'anti-burn' protections there built in so you can't burn yourself (or a child).
But one big bummer - I had a single handle put in when we remodeled our bathroom in San jose and I was very disappointed becuase the water was never hot enough for me after that.
even when the behind the wall protector switch was switched so it would make water as hot as it could, it just wouldn't. In order for the tub to have water hot enough for me, I had to get the water heater to heat the water at a much higher temperature and do it that way... of course that wastes $. (of course, that was just me complaining that the water wasn't hot enough, it was pleanty hot for DH and for kids' baths)

uhhh... and the toilet too?
the sweating is because the water is too cold and can be fixed by adding hot water to the toilet via a tempering valve (they also have insulation kits that are a PITA but do work)
the new $200 toilets can be pressurized or whatever, but the new codes require low flow and trust me - the cheap ones will plug up and no matter what you get, you'll have to flush twice even if it doesn't plug.

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